


The Art of Moving On

by LindseyWells



Category: Karppi | Deadwind (TV)
Genre: Bulimia, Childhood Trauma, Denial, Developing Relationship, Drug Use, Eating Disorders, F/M, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort later on, Not Beta Read, Past Drug Addiction, Past Sexual Abuse, mentions of other characters and relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 01:27:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29270262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LindseyWells/pseuds/LindseyWells
Summary: Excerpt: When his beloved coffee in the morning hurt his abused stomach in a way Nurmi couldn't stand anymore, he didn't go see a doctor. Instead, he applied for a transfer to the homicide department, hoping that a little change of scenery would help him yet again to get a grip on his life.
Relationships: Sofia Karppi/Sakari Nurmi
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	The Art of Moving On

**Author's Note:**

> Dear readers, please note the following points before starting this story:  
> \- I bent the original plot a bit, so it'd fit my story.  
> \- This story deals with an eating disorder, drug addiction, as well as some other triggering topics. Please check the tags and don't read this fic if any of the themes are too triggering for you.  
> \- Yes, eating disorders are addictions. Many people aren't aware of this, so I feel like mentioning it here.  
> \- Last but not least: There's not a single dialogue in the first chapter. Nurmi is practically fighting a silent battle in secret. I'm sorry for the drama. I've got plans to change this in the next chapter(s).

All of his ten fingers, red and cold and trembling, clang to the small cup of exquisite coffee as if it was the Holy Grail. The soothing warmth of the freshly brewed beverage was indeed heavenly. The coffee's strong scent caressed Nurmi's chapped lips and rose into his nose, where it eradicated the last remnants of the pungent smell of sour vomit.

Nurmi was fully aware of the fact that drinking coffee on an empty stomach wouldn't help him much in the long term, but he didn't trust himself enough to eat. Not even something simple like a plain slice of crispbread or toast. So he closed his tired eyes, took a sip of his beloved coffee, and felt the hot liquid irritating his maltreated stomach, which promptly reacted with a cramp. It hurt, but he could handle it. It wasn't that bad. He was just in a _not so good_ phase that would soon be over. After all, he had managed to overcome several of these phases before. It wasn't that hard. Or so Nurmi liked to think while he ignored that his exhausted body displayed a range of severe symptoms telling a whole different story.

**– Before –**

She had stopped talking to him. It wasn't his fault. None of what had happened was his fault. Karppi knew it. She knew it damn well. Still, she refused to open the door and to answer his calls. So even though he had done nothing wrong, it surely felt that way and there was nothing he could do about it. With his fists clenched and his eyes narrowed, Nurmi found himself once again face-to-face with the feeling of being utterly helpless.

What followed was not a conscious decision, but a rash action. On his way home from her apartment, as he passed the small takeaway he used to pay far too many visits when he was still with the financial crime unit, he suddenly stopped his car and ordered food for two that he had all by himself.

It wasn't her fault. He just had never learned to digest specific emotions.

**\--– Before Before –--**

During his time at the financial crime unit, **it** used to happen _very_ frequently. Between exemplary regular working hours and all the long, dull hours filling his empty evenings, Nurmi had begun to stumble over his bad habit yet again. And before he had even fully realized what had been going on, he was back to falling on his knees almost every night, bringing up whatever he had hastily bought on his way home or devotedly cooked in his kitchen.

There were no late working hours saving him from this. No evening meals with friends, family members, or far too ambitious colleagues, whose vigilant eyes laid on him after they had pizza, Chinese, or the like. It was thus entirely up to him to decide what was on the menu each and every night.

Some evenings, when he managed to gather up enough mental strength, he made his way to his favorite Italian restaurant. Sitting at his usual table, he transformed into a poor copy of an ordinary guest, who seemed to enjoy his food. A normal plate of pasta, accompanied by a normal glass of wine and a normal glass of water, topped with a normal espresso for dessert.

The other guests, despite trying to hide it, always stared at him. Of course they did. A man of his age, quite good-looking, all alone, not even finishing his plate. That was weird. Nurmi was just happy that they had no idea how much harder it was for him to stay seated after eating than to ignore their blunt stares.

He was sorry for sweet Filippa, though, for whenever she cleaned his table and saw that his plate was only half-finished, she did what every good waitress would do in such a situation: She asked if something was wrong with the food. Lacking a good explanation, Nurmi usually came up with a white lie. The sauce had been too salty, the cheese too greasy, the chilis too hot, the fish too fishy… It soon became ridiculous and Filippa stopped taking his complaints seriously. Since he remained a regular customer, she knew that he must be somewhat fond of the food that was served here. She probably came to the conclusion that he was one of those extremely picky eaters who had a little appetite by nature. Nurmi could very well live with that unspoken assumption of hers, and as long as he paid his bills and flirted a little with Filippa, she didn't care much about the leftovers on his plate.

**_________**

When his first cup of coffee in the morning hurt his abused stomach in a way Nurmi couldn't stand anymore, he didn't go see a doctor. Instead, he applied for a transfer to the homicide department, hoping that a little change of scenery would help him yet again to get a grip on his life. If there was one department that was famous for its stressful working schedule, then it was the homicide department. And having hardly any time for a private life was a guarantee to have hardly any time to follow the itching urge forcing Nurmi to binge and purge.

**_________**

**It** was like a boomerang. No matter how much strength Nurmi invested in throwing it away, it always returned to him. He didn't understand why, though. His current life differed fundamentally from the life in which it had all started.

After his parents' murder, he had almost drowned in a sea of toxic emotions. He had felt so sad and angry, so lonely and desperate, but also so very guilty. What had made matters worse had been that irrespective of how much he had twisted and turned, he hadn't been able to escape the orphanage's official and unofficial rules. He hadn't been able to improve his situation even the tiniest bit. Instead, shame had laid its hands on him, catapulting his feelings of power- and helplessness to a whole new level. Under these circumstances, he had found only one way to numb the pain and regain at least some sort of control.

To this day, Nurmi was both unable and unwilling to give anyone a concrete description of the fatal mixture of feelings and events that had eventually pushed him over the edge. As a teenager, when he had started to rearrange the food on his plate, to count his bites, and to stick his fingers down his throat after he had been ordered to empty his plate, terms like eating disorder, anorexia, and bulimia had been complete strangers to him. But even later on, when he had gained a basic understanding of these mental illnesses as a grown-up, he had always strictly refused to draw any connection between them and himself. He wasn't sick. It was just some meal skipping and some throwing up every now and then. It was how he dealt with certain things and hence nothing to worry about. That was what he had made himself believe, whilst in truth, he had already been wholeheartedly consumed by his eating disorder. His set of once helpful coping mechanisms had quickly transformed into a dangerous addiction. An addiction that had soon been followed by another one. Cocaine had been the perfect addition to his life, as it had lifted his spirits and drowned out the hunger and tiredness.

Tricked by the constant highs of cocaine and puking, Nurmi had been really, really happy. For a very, very short time.

**_________**

His first day at the homicide department was his very personal zero hour. No more slipping, no more kneeling. And indeed, at first, his plan worked out better than expected because there they were: the long hours of overtime working, the constant pressure to stop a killer before another innocent life was taken, and, of course, the late meals with colleagues, particularly with Karppi.

Working so closely together with a partner was a hell of a reason for Nurmi to act as normally as possible around food. Better Karppi rolled her eyes at him when he mentioned that he was hungry and that he needed to eat than for her to figure out how screwed up he really was. Plus, it worried him a little how often she replaced meals with cigarettes and coffee. Offering her half of his sushi box and reminding her of the importance of regular meals was the least he could do. For the both of them. It was his method to find his way back into a somewhat normal eating schedule. Fuck regular working and sleeping hours. He never needed those. As long as he had his food intake under control, he could handle anything.

The problem was just: He didn't have his food intake under control. Only on all those long working days, but not when he was home alone with the intense urge that demanded to be felt and fed. That promised him to get high on endorphins after vomiting. Nurmi had most probably never let Laura back into his life if it hadn't meant to have another person around. A person who would keep him from acting on his inner demon's command after coming home.

But she was an addict. Of course she was. There were millions of people out there and he once again ended up with someone who was as addicted to taking drugs as he was to puking up his food. He didn't admit the latter to himself, though. Rather, he tried to help Laura until he realized that he wasn't in the position to do so. She had been in touch with the wrong people. With the kind of people who were familiar with some very nasty bits of Nurmi's past and who told him straight away that if he wanted to keep his lousy career by the police, it'd be best for him to leave them the fuck alone. Otherwise, they would dig out some of the skeletons hidden in his closet.

That was when his optimism crumbled and he was overwhelmed by the fear that sooner or later, Laura would drag him down, too. Yes, if he wasn't paying even more attention, if he wasn't investing even more energy in avoiding **it** , he would soon spend all his evenings on his knees, puking his guts out and not caring whether someone else witnessed it or not. Alternatively, he would fall for cocaine again because he had no self-control at all. The longer Laura was a part of his life, the higher the risks for himself were becoming.

For his own sake then, he told her to leave. Overall, though, her disappearance didn't improve his situation much. Needless to say that deep down, Nurmi had known this all along. Laura hadn't been his main problem, although she had brought the drugs into his apartment despite knowing how hard he had fought to get clean. Good for him that she hadn't found out that food was among the addictive substances in Nurmi's life as well. How could she have done so anyway? The two of them, they had shared completely ordinary meals together and each time she had looked at Nurmi, she had seen the exact same thing he spotted when he looked in the mirror: a perfectly healthy man.  
This man in the mirror seemed to have nothing in common with the man who applied a little later for a 6-week-stay in an Italian treatment facility. Hiding behind the story of a burn out when interacting with other patients, Nurmi made sure he never sat alone during meal times. Just to get back on track, just to get rid of the pestering urge that had been following him around like his own shadow for years on end now.

It was a private facility, set in Italy's stunning countryside, specializing in people suffering from depression, burn out, pulmonary diseases, as well as other chronic ailments. Upon his arrival, Nurmi had blamed his job, particularly his latest case during which he had been exposed to radioactive radiation, for his stomach aches and general physical unease. The doctors there believed him like all the doctors Nurmi had seen before and who had never raised a single question about his eating habits.

Not throwing up for six weeks straight was hell on earth for him. But he couldn't return to Helsinki, _to Karppi_ , still making himself sick on a regular basis. He wanted to return to her as the partner she could rely on, as the man she longed to kiss with all her heart and soul when she was sober, not drunk. He had every intention to make things work between them. He had, however, no intention to introduce her to any of the horrible addictions that had left their imprints on his soul.

**_tbc_ **

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm an extremely slow writer, but I have some ideas to continue this story. Please be patient.


End file.
